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Also affected by Tuesday’s earthquake in Kumamoto was TSMC, which operates a production fab in the city. The company says the factory’s buildings remain structurally safe, and that employees are gradually returning to production lines. However, a full assessment of the impact of the earthquake remains to be finalized. Meanwhile, construction at TSMC’s second fab in Kumamoto has been suspended for now due to safety concerns. Let’s hear from an analyst.
Nobunaga Chai
Cloud Express
The equipment will have to be recalibrated, retested and inspected. Some parameters might have to be adjusted. With more than 200 machines requiring complex and precise procedures, it could take one week or even two. The wafers that were being made are probably completely destroyed. Assuming a capacity utilization rate of 80%, 40,000 12-inch wafers could be lost, from the monthly capacity of 50,000 wafers.
Though TSMC fabs were built by teams with extensive experience in seismic zones, experts say the violent shaking may have caused equipment to become misaligned, and wafers may have been damaged. In order for operations to resume as normal, technicians will have to recalibrate the machinery. An analyst says the disruption could affect TSMC’s profit margins for the current fiscal quarter in Japan, though insurance payouts could offset some of the losses in the coming quarter. It all depends on how long it will take for the company to recover.
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